


Now Or Never

by aretia



Series: Bloodlines [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 19:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12463875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aretia/pseuds/aretia
Summary: Kolivan exercises caution in all things. But he’s about to take the biggest risk of his life: confessing his feelings to Antok when he comes out of the healing pod after the battle with the druids.





	Now Or Never

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 7.5 of Bloodlines, if you want to see what Kolivan and Antok are up to between chapters 7 and 8

It was a miracle that Antok had survived the blow during the fight with the druids. It was another, smaller miracle that the Alteans had a healing pod big enough to accommodate him. The only way he could fit was with his arms crossed over his chest and his hands atop the opposite shoulders. A burial pose. If Antok had died, he might look the same, and it was uncanny. Kolivan looked for the slight rise and fall of his chest to reassure himself that Antok was still there. 

The Alteans didn’t have a pod suit big enough for Antok, so he was still dressed in his Blade of Marmora undersuit. It was torn where he had been injured in the arm and chest. The skin underneath it was fully furred and intact. 

The pod couldn’t heal old wounds, however. Kolivan gazed at the pockmarked acid scar on the left side of Antok’s face, the eye socket where his eyelids had been sealed together, the long and fluffy ear that was ripped off at the tip and asymmetrical with the other one. The Empire was not kind to half-Galra like Antok. After he was mutilated by a Galra soldier, he escaped to the Blade of Marmora.

Arriving in the same initiate class, Antok had quickly become Kolivan’s closest friend. When Kolivan had become the leader of the Blade, he’d named Antok his trusted advisor and second in command. Kolivan sometimes wished he and Antok could be something more. He came to care for quiet, strong Antok on a level that was deeper than their bond as friends—and inappropriate for their position as leaders. 

That wasn’t the only thing holding him back. Kolivan was afraid to feel deeply for anyone in the Blade. He knew that any of their lives could be taken in an instant, and he wanted to shield himself from that pain as much as he could. And then his worst fears almost came true. When Antok fell, all of Kolivan’s repressed emotions came crashing down on him, all the regrets for the time he had wasted and everything they could have had if he hadn’t been such a coward. That was why, standing in front of Antok’s healing pod, he was filled with a fierce determination to confess his feelings, even if it killed him.

Kolivan was startled out of his thoughts when the door of the pod opened with a whoosh and white vapor poured out of it. Out of the pod stepped Antok. He blinked his eye and looked around, disoriented, tail swishing back and forth in wide strokes. His eye widened when his gaze fell on Kolivan, who shifted on his feet uneasily in front of him. 

Antok brought his hand up to his face and seemed surprised to find the bare skin there. The mask was his comfort object. Kolivan was selfishly grateful that he wasn’t wearing it, because being able to see Antok’s reactions would make it easier to say what he was about to say. 

“Hello, Kolivan,” Antok said. “It is nighttime.” 

The statement seemed obvious, but then Kolivan remembered that Antok had just woken up from a coma and was trying to orient himself. Kolivan, however, had not, so what he said next just made him look dumb. “Yes, it is,” he replied. 

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Antok asked.

Kolivan’s fur prickled with embarrassment. “Uh, I was just… taking a walk. Couldn’t sleep. So I thought I’d come by and visit you. How are you feeling?”

Antok thumped his hand over the healed spot on his chest. “Much better, thank you.” He stretched his arms up, wincing as his joints cracked. “A little cramped and sore. That healing pod was too small for me.” 

Kolivan let out a nervous laugh and a noncommittal “Mhm.”

“Something on your mind, Kolivan?” Antok probed, with a tilt of his head.

“No, nothing,” Kolivan stammered. _Coward. Spit it out,_ Kolivan reprimanded himself. “I was just about to go back to bed, actually.” _Damn it._

“Oh.” Antok’s ears folded back and he lowered his head, looking disappointed that Kolivan was leaving so soon. “I suppose I should do that too. Even though I just woke up, I am still rather tired. But no one has assigned me a room yet, and I wouldn’t want to wake anyone up to ask…”

Alarm bells went off in Kolivan’s head. Was Antok asking to spend the night with him? “Uh, would you like to sleep in my room?” Kolivan offered.

“If it wouldn’t be an inconvenience. Thank you for your consideration,” Antok said, with a slight bow of his head as if Kolivan had just given him a grand gift. A smile spread across his face, or the part of it that he still had muscle control over, resulting in a crooked grin that ended at his scar. Kolivan felt his cheeks warming and quickly averted his gaze before his face caught on fire. He turned around and exited the room, with Antok following far too close behind him. 

Kolivan led the way down the hallways to his room. When they stepped inside Kolivan’s bedroom, Kolivan immediately offered Antok the bed, extending his hand toward it. “You can have the bed if you’d like.”

Antok gave it a long look, and mused, “The Alteans are so _small_.” 

Kolivan huffed another tense laugh. He was almost too big for it himself. Of course Antok wouldn’t fit. 

“I don’t mind sleeping on the floor,” Antok said. Kolivan grumbled in protest, but Antok was already sitting down and proceeding to sprawl out on Kolivan’s floor, a few feet from his bed. 

“At least… here,” Kolivan muttered, grabbing the pillow and blanket off of his bed. He draped the blanket over Antok; it only covered him from his mid-chest to his knees. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Antok insisted, tilting up a bit, but Kolivan was already shoving the pillow under his head and then jumping back into his own bed. 

Kolivan curled up on his side so that he was facing the wall, away from Antok. “Goodnight, Antok,” he called.

“Goodnight,” Antok replied.

In a few doboshes, Antok was fast asleep and snoring loudly.

Kolivan knew he wouldn’t get any sleep that night, and not because of the snoring. Any soldier could fall asleep in noisier conditions. It was because Antok was right there, and Kolivan still couldn’t bring himself to tell him. Kolivan had tried to swallow his feelings down so many times. Yet the feelings always bubbled up again, like bile in his throat from a poison his stomach could never digest, and he would keep feeling sick until he let it out.

“Antok?” his mouth said before he could control it. 

Antok woke up with a drowsy yawn. “Mm?”

“Sorry to wake you,” Kolivan said, turning over and pushing himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. “I have something to tell you.”

Antok turned onto his side, and propped himself up on his elbow to look at Kolivan. “Yes? I’m listening.”

Kolivan’s fight or flight response kicked in again. He wanted to say _never mind_ and pretend to fall asleep, shy away from the feeling like he always had. But he never knew when the chance to tell Antok would truly be his last chance. It was now or never.

“You almost died on that mission,” Kolivan said. 

“That was a risk I was prepared to take,” Antok replied. “You of all people should know that.”

Kolivan pinched the bridge of his nose. This was hard enough as it was, and Antok wasn’t going to make it any easier. “I know, but… _I_ can’t afford to lose you,” Kolivan cried. His voice choked up, and it took effort to force the words out without stuttering. He was afraid this would happen. He sounded pathetic. “There’s no one who could replace you. You’re not just my most trusted agent. You’re my best friend, and I… I love you, Antok.”

There was barely a pause before Antok answered, “I love you too.”

Kolivan, who had been bracing himself for rejection with his ears pinned back and his head bent towards the ground, looked up with a start. “Wait, you do?”

“Yes. I have known you felt this way about me for some time, Kolivan,” Antok admitted. “I feel the same.” 

Kolivan stared at him in disbelief. “If you knew, why didn’t you make the first move? This has been eating away at me for ages. It would have been so much easier if you had said something.”

“I apologize,” Antok said. “I thought that it would be wise to wait until you were ready to make the choice yourself. I knew you had your doubts, and I was afraid you would reject me if I asked you before you had reconciled with yourself. Please don’t be angry with me.”

“I’m not angry. That was very kind of you,” Kolivan breathed.

“You deserve nothing less.” 

A warm smile crept over Kolivan’s face. It felt almost foreign on his face that was weighed down with scowls so often. “Thank you, Antok.” He let out a yawn that he’d been holding. “I think we should get some sleep.”

“Mhm,” Antok agreed, lying down on his back. “ ‘Night.” 

Kolivan lay down on the bed, still staring fondly at Antok. He reached out to pull his blanket over him. Then, he remembered that the blanket was currently in Antok’s possession. 

Antok noticed. “Are you cold? Here, take your blanket back.” 

“No, no, you keep it,” Kolivan insisted. He tried to hold in his shiver.

Antok stopped in the middle of wadding up the blanket. “We could share it,” he suggested innocently.

It took Kolivan a few ticks to figure out what he meant. He flung his hands up to cover his face. “ _Stars,_ Antok…”

“If you’re not comfortable with it, we don’t have to,” Antok said. “But I would really like to start making up for lost time, Koli.”

_Koli?_ He hadn’t heard that nickname since they were initiates. It was not befitting of a leader. Hearing it again made his stomach flutter, like Antok clearly knew it would.

Antok was _infuriating._ Even more so was how desperately Kolivan wanted him. How many times had he dreamed of falling asleep in Antok’s arms? This was his chance, right here. Making up for lost time, time that he thought was lost for good when Antok took that hit, was certainly a priority of his. Still, the thought of it filled him with too much adrenaline to even think about sleeping. 

Kolivan sighed. “I’m coming, Ani.”

He was satisfied when he saw Antok’s eye widen at the sound of his own nickname from their youth. Kolivan swung his legs out of the bed and padded across the floor to Antok. He situated himself on his side, still a few inches away from Antok. He had never done this before, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do. 

Antok scooped him up in his arms and pulled him on top of his chest, so that Kolivan was using Antok as a pillow. Antok tucked the blanket over them so that it came up to Kolivan’s shoulders, and then wrapped his arms around him. Adjusting his head to get comfortable, Kolivan nuzzled against Antok’s neck. Antok’s deep purr resonated within him. In an instant, the snoring was back. 

Kolivan wanted to stay awake and savor the moment, but he felt his eyelids getting heavy too. He had barely slept since Antok had gotten injured. Antok’s steady heartbeat in his ear, reminding him that they were safe, finally lulled him to sleep.

 

Kolivan woke up slowly. The lights were on in the room, meaning the castle had gone into its day cycle, and he had overslept. He hadn’t slept that deeply in decaphoebs. 

He was mortified when he noticed that he had been drooling on Antok’s chest. He frantically tried to wipe the saliva off with his finger without waking Antok. That wasn’t too hard. Antok slept like a rock. 

Kolivan settled back into Antok’s arms, and was about to doze off again when the door opened. His eyes snapped open and his ears perked when he heard Thace’s voice. “Kolivan? You awake? Since when do you sleep in? …Oh. Oh my stars. Hi, Antok. Ulaz, you’re not going to believe this…” 

Kolivan sat bolt upright, ready to have a word with his next-door neighbor about privacy, but Thace was already down the hall. He left the door wide open. Kolivan scrambled away from Antok before anyone else caught them. 

Antok was rubbing his eye drowsily. Even Thace’s intrusion hadn’t fully woken him up. Kolivan felt a smile lifting the corners of his mouth again, and he let it.


End file.
